Evergreenia's Echoes, Edge of the Final Memory
We emerged from the Breath like seeds scattered from a dying flower.
One moment, we stood knee-deep in glowing mist—wrapped in laughter, ghosts, and Grin's bone-clatter joy—the next, the world heaved beneath us. The light turned viscous. The sky spun like wet paint on glass. And then—
Queen Sentient stepped forward from nothing.
She didn't walk so much as pour across the air, her robes curling like smoke, her presence slicing through time itself. With one simple motion—a hand lifted, fingers curled in an elegant beckon—the mist reared back like it feared her.
"Enough," she said.
And the Breath… breathed its last.
It collapsed in on itself, the way dream logic does when the alarm finally hits. I felt it go. The memory. The warmth. The illusion of safety.
Gone.
Only the chill of aftermath clung to my bones.
We landed hard—gravity reasserting itself like a scorned lover—inside her chamber.
Queen Sentient's Chamber, Beneath the Breathline
The air in the chamber buzzed like it knew a secret. A delicious secret. Queen Sentient's hand hovered above the vortex, fingers curled like a seductress drawing back a curtain.
Her voice rang out, melodic and heavy with meaning. "Pecola," she said, her words smooth as silk over bare skin, "the answers you seek lie within the echoes of your past. Prepare yourself."
I swallowed hard. Behind me, Antic rolled the brim of his oversized hat down further, muttering a curse that sounded almost too flirty for the moment. "Great. Glowing trauma hole. Can't wait."
Grin tried to smirk, but it twitched sideways on his skeletal face like a haunted emoji. Dolly, for once, was quiet, her doll-like lips parted in rare serenity—as if even her chaos knew this moment wasn't hers to steal.
The vortex pulsed like a heartbeat, green and breathing, its swirling light licking the edges of the room like flame. It wasn't just magic—it was memory with teeth.
I stepped forward, the air brushing against my face like a forbidden lover's breath.
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the world shattered into color.
Swirling. Stretching. Collapsing.
And then—stillness.
Evergreenia, Outer Slopes of the Amber Hills – Within the Memory
The world held its breath.
We stood in a realm of impossible beauty. The hills glowed with an amber hue, the sun low and lazy as if seduced by the sky. Wind curled through the grass in sultry motions, stroking the stems of iridescent flowers that trembled under invisible fingers. Floating creatures zipped past, trailing luminous pheromones.
"Evergreenia," came Queen Sentient's voice on the wind, barely a breath. "A realm of senses… long devoured by time. Here lies the beginning, Pecola. Your true beginning."
And then—her.
A vision began to unravel—too vivid to be a dream, too perfect to be real.
I saw her.
Myself, but not.
A woman with hair like cascading ink and eyes that glimmered like twin universes cracking open. Her body moved with a sensual grace so fluid it made the wind blush. She wasn't blind. She wasn't shy.
She was Elara.
And she was a fucking goddess.
Elara's home nestled in a tangled grove that moaned with enchantment. Her fingers danced through the air and the forest bloomed in response. Magic pulsed from her skin. She controlled the senses—enhanced them, distorted them, devoured them. A kiss from her could send a man spiraling into soundless ecstasy—or into a silence so profound it would drive him mad.
And she loved. Gods, she loved.
Theron. A woodcarver with eyes like twilight and hands that could turn timber into symphonies. When he looked at her, it wasn't just admiration—it was worship. Their chemistry was raw, electric, and hilariously tender.
They flirted like teenagers who'd read too much erotic fanfiction.
"Carve me something useless," Elara teased, straddling his lap beside the hearth. "Like your excuses for not kissing me."
"I was carving you a hairpin," Theron grunted, wood shavings on his shirt, "but you're far more dangerous with your hair down."
She bit his shoulder and whispered, "Exactly."
But bliss never lasts.
The forest darkened. Malkor came like a disease in a lover's bed. Twisting, poisoning, whispering promises to the flora and stealing their color. He wanted Evergreenia's magic—but Elara was its heartbeat.
She fought with unrelenting ferocity. She twisted Malkor's senses, made him deaf to his own screams, blind to the daggers flying at his back. But each spell cost her. Each enchantment bled her magic like a leaky wine cask. The woman who had once danced through light now stumbled, her eyes dimming, her voice thinning.
Then came the final stand.
I watched—helpless—as Elara stood beneath the moon, her senses flickering like dying stars. Theron held her, trembling. She touched his face as if memorizing it through fingertips alone.
"I'll remember you… in silence," she whispered, before unleashing a cataclysm of pure light that swallowed Malkor whole—and took her sight with it.
Evergreenia, Queen Sentient's Chamber – Present Time
The vision bled away.
My legs buckled.
Antic caught me, one arm tight around my waist, grounding me with a steadiness he never pretended to possess.
"Hey," he murmured, unusually gentle. "You good, Blindside?"
I nodded, though my throat felt too tight to speak. His hand lingered just a second too long on my waist. I didn't move away.
Queen Sentient appeared beside us like a shadow with mascara. "Elara was your mother," she said, eyes glowing soft. "And your blindness is not a flaw. It is the echo of her final act of love."
Her love. That fierce, sharp-edged goddess… was my mother.
Hot sugar over a bruised heart—that's how it hit.
Antic leaned closer, voice brushing against the edge of sincerity like he didn't quite know how to wear it. "You've got her spine, you know. I mean, you're way moodier. But… still."
"I have her eyes too," I whispered, smiling sad. "Even if they don't work."
"You work." He moved closer. "And I—"
Whatever he was going to say died on his lips.
Instead, he leaned in.
And this time, I didn't flinch.
But I didn't let him either.
My palm landed flat on his chest. Not hard. Not gentle. Just final.
"Stop."
Antic froze, lips barely a breath away from mine.
"I said I can't, didn't I?" My voice cracked like something sharp inside me had turned brittle. "I need to figure things out first. Me. Before anything else."
For a second, he didn't move.
Then he let out a sharp breath through his nose—half laugh, half sigh—and stepped back, dragging a gloved hand across his face.
"Y'know," he said, his voice trying way too hard to stay casual, "you've changed."
I didn't say anything.
"You used to be all... aloof. Like a ghost with too much eyeliner. Now you're—" he sniffed, rubbing the back of his wrist beneath his nose, "I dunno. Realer. More bite."
I felt heat rise to my cheeks. But I held my ground.
He wasn't wrong. I had changed. And I wasn't done changing yet.
Grin, mercifully, didn't say anything. Dolly tilted her head slightly, like a porcelain cat sensing a storm.
And then—the golden glow of Evergreenia's memory flickered.
Like candlelight drowning in water.
Queen Sentient's Chamber, The Echo Memory — Scene: Elara's Exile
And then—the golden glow of Evergreenia's memory flickered.
Like candlelight drowning in water.
The warmth drained out of the scene.
Colors soured. Petals wilted mid-bloom. The lazy amber light turned the sick hue of old parchment. The wind, once playful and scented with sweetness, grew heavy and wet with grief. Evergreenia did not fall in one cataclysm—it dimmed like a lover slowly losing interest.
Elara stumbled.
She looked like a goddess no more.
Her skin—once pulsing with the rhythmic shimmer of nature magic—dulled like damp ash. Her hair, thick and ink-dark, was matted to her temples. Her eyes—oh gods, her eyes—were still bright, but terrified. Like someone still trying to love the world while it betrayed her one vine at a time.
She held something.
A baby.
Me.
Wrapped in vines that glowed faintly like they didn't want to let go. She cradled me to her chest like I was the last real thing in the world.
I watched her sit—collapse—into an ancient rocking chair, half-swallowed by a shadowed cottage tucked into the roots of a gnarled tree.
Wind scratched the shutters.
She rocked slowly. Not soothingly. Not peacefully. Just... to stop from screaming.
"Shh," she whispered, her voice not trembling, but splintering. "Shh, Pecola. You won't remember this part. You don't have to. I'll remember it for both of us."
The walls of the cottage creaked like they were bearing witness to something they shouldn't.
She kissed my forehead. Once. Twice.
Then her magic did something I felt in my bones.
It curled back inside her like a retreating tide. The vines dimmed. The warmth faded. The light around her pulsed once—and then died.
And Elara—the mighty, wild Elara who twisted the senses of warlords and bled light through her fingertips—went still.
Not dead.
But something worse.
Muted.
It wasn't a sacrifice made with fire and thunder.
It was made with silence.
Queen Sentient's Chamber, The Echo Memory — Scene: Theron's Rage, The Elders' Decree
Elara didn't cry.
She just rocked.
The chair creaked like a dying heartbeat, back and forth, back and forth. I could hear the splinter of wood beneath her, the way her fingers clutched the fabric of my swaddle so tight it looked like she was trying to fuse us back into one body.
Outside, Theron stood like stone.
He was different now.
His hair had greyed at the temples, like grief had reached out and touched him just to see what it could take. His hands—those miracle hands that once carved sonatas from cedar—hung limp at his sides. There was sap on his boots. A crack down his knuckles. Blood on his jaw.
I could feel him shaking, even though he didn't move.
He looked at the house like he wanted to burn it down.
Then came the antlers.
Three of them. Draped in ceremonial silks and bones that clinked like wind chimes—elders of Evergreenia, dressed not for reverence but ritual.
Their expressions were blank masks of stone and perfume. Not cruel. Not kind. Just... final.
"She has made her choice," one intoned, his voice too smooth to be human.
"You will not contest it," said another, the taller one. "The child is not bound here."
"The mother is no longer a vessel of the old magics. She is... contained."
Contained.
Like wildfire in a jar.
Theron didn't respond. Not with words.
He just turned toward them, slow and deliberate. His jaw clicked. His nostrils flared.
The tallest elder flinched—flinched—and I swear, I saw something ghost across Theron's face. Not rage. Not sorrow.
Pity.
"You'll regret burying her," he murmured.
Then he turned his back on them.
He didn't enter the house. He didn't touch Elara. He just stood there in the garden, among the wilted flowers and the grieving vines, and he didn't move for a very, very long time.
Queen Sentient's Chamber, The Echo Memory — Scene: The Stripping Ceremony
Later—days? Hours?—the cottage had changed.
Stripped bare. Candles extinguished. A circle of white salt ringed the room.
Elara stood at its center.
She didn't wear her robes anymore. Just a shift of plain linen, soaked to her knees from where she'd knelt in the river.
They chanted around her.
Not priests.
Magicians in mourning.
Words were spoken that didn't translate. Sounds that curled like worms under the skin. I couldn't understand them—but my bones could.
They weren't taking her magic.
They were unraveling who she was.
First, her taste. I saw it go. Her mouth opened, tongue trembling—and then stilled, as if flavor had abandoned the world.
Next, her hearing dulled. The chant faded in her ears, her face turning blank in the quiet.
Then—sight.
Not blindness like mine. No.
Just absence.
She didn't react when the candlelight faded. She didn't blink.
The Elara from before—the goddess of senses, of ecstatic magic, of taste and sound and devastating kisses—was gone.
They didn't kill her.
They emptied her.
And when it was over, she knelt in the center of the salt, cradling nothing.
They left her like that.
And I watched her fall, piece by piece, and I hated them.
All of them.
Even the ones who didn't look at her.
Especially them.
Queen Sentient's Chamber, The Echo Memory — Scene: The Bargain with the Order
They came for her at dusk.
Not loudly. Not with torches or threats or showy declarations.
Just silence. Six figures, cloaked in robes darker than moonless water, gliding through the trees like they belonged to the roots. Their veils shimmered faintly, like oil slicks beneath a starless sky.
I didn't hear their footsteps. I felt them.
A prickle at the base of my spine. A hush in the leaves. The taste of cold copper on the back of my tongue.
They circled Elara's cottage without entering.
Like wolves waiting to see if the prey would open the door herself.
And she did.
Of course she did.
Elara met them at the threshold, barefoot and shaking, her hair unbound and her skin ash-pale beneath the weight of sacrifice. She clutched me to her chest. I wasn't crying. I was asleep. I think. Maybe it was the enchantment.
Or maybe I knew.
That something irreversible was about to be done.
She stepped out of the house and into the ring of strangers.
"I know who you are," she said. Her voice rasped like it had been unused for years. "You're the Order of the Silken Veil."
One of them tilted their head. A low chuckle escaped behind their mask.
"Good," the tallest replied. Voice low. Smoky. Genderless. "Then you know you're too late to bargain for your own soul."
"I'm not here for mine."
She held me tighter.
They didn't move.
"She's not like me," Elara continued. "She's... more. Wilder. She won't be tamed by elders or hidden forever behind ritual and fear."
"She is volatile," one figure whispered.
"She is fate-born," another agreed.
"She is dangerous."
"She is hope," Elara said. And it wasn't a plea. It was a warning.
They didn't argue.
They didn't have to.
"We can protect her," said the tallest, stepping forward. "But only on our terms."
Elara's jaw set. "What terms?"
The figures exchanged glances. Even behind their masks, I could sense their hunger. Their interest.
"She will not know her name," one said.
"She will not know you," said another.
"Her power will be bound until the world calls for her return," said the tallest. "And even then, it will come in pain."
Elara swallowed.
"You would make her blind," she said.
"No," the tall one said. "We will make her invisible."
And I don't know if Elara nodded.
Or bowed.
Or broke.
But the next moment—
I was being taken.
Not torn away. Just… passed. Like a book. Like a weapon sealed in velvet.
I didn't cry. She didn't scream.
But I remember her hands. Cold. Trembling. Reluctant.
And her breath, close to my ear.
"Forgive me," she whispered. "Find your own name, my light. Burn brighter than they'll ever let me."
Then she was gone.
No. I was.